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This blog will serve as a discussion and posting site for members of WRA/ENG 395, AL 891, and the Writing Center at MSU as they seek to examine the techniques of tutoring writing, as well as the various theories that under gird tutoring.
6 comments:
Ok so among the older posts i have described an observation conference (1) and a conference in which i was tutoring but being observed (1). i guess i just talk a lot in class because i could've sworn there were more i wrote about here!
i really didn't think i talked that much...i'm so shy normally! (TOTALLY kidding if you didn't catch the sarcasm through these ever so emotional black letters on a computer screen =])
brief summary of a few conferences that i've talked about enough in class or that don't deserve too much recognition (although every conference deserves some afterthought because otherwise we couldn't learn from them)
Observation (2)
the client was international, the tutor was ashley waldorf. she asked him what the assignment was and he read it aloud. it seemed like a pretty good conference, but it would've been much better if he was interested in improving his paper and not having us do it. it was a classic i don't want to do the work example. i mean he tried to generate ideas but he was resisting putting them together on his own. the most frustrating piece was that he couldn't fully explain the topic- he was relating the lord of the rings to an asian novel about 4 animals going on a quest and his main point was that religion was the prominent theme in both...can we say ambiguity people? how about confusion? how about just WHAT?
ashley was good though =]
Client (1)
This was me needing help figuring out what to write for my writing center final paper. we came up with a lot of ideas and jenny was awesome and helped me organize my thoughts into a narrow, but explorable topic. success! and in response to kassidy's post about how he was uncomfortable showing his paper to a stranger, i wouldn't have a problem showing a paper i was worried about as long as i truly believed that they were better writers than me or at least at a high enough level that i would feel benefitted from the conference. at the same time, i would show anyone a paper for a quick read-over to see if they like my ideas because anyone can say something doesnt make sense or that something doesn't flow right as long as they can read
If you are shy, then I am Emily Dickinson.
Observation (3)
I observed Krish in the library and he did a pretty darn good job. =] the client was writing a paper for a phd dissertation, and he looked slightly nervous. Krish and i started the conference by making fun of each other which definitely helped the client open up and feel comfortable talking to us. krish let me give my input a couple times which i really appreciated because we both were listening to him reading aloud and we took different things out of it. he also changed the font to red, because the client was reading his paper from a computer screen. that way, if they made any changes, he could compare them to his original text which i thought wa an excellent idea. i used that to help a client later and she loved it because she could see what we had accomplished throughout the session.
Observation (4)
I observed Beth in the main center. the client was a freshman in wra and she was adorable. She seemed pretty pesimistic about her writing and that pessimisn definitely stemmed from teacher's comments, which is sad because i think that if teachers were more encouraging, students would not be afraid of writing and they wouldn't hate it so much. she was nervous to read aloud but she did and as she read, she pointed out several mistakes and asked several questions about punctuation. Beth described punctuation as on a continuum- that commas were weak, semi-colons were on the next step, and periods could beat them both. it was funny- and it made us both laugh but it helped her learn when to use semi-colons in her writing. her paper was about the sexism present in the current poitical debates. she had to read an article that argued that because Hilary was a woman, she should win the Democratic nomination. The client's paper seemed pretty good. she presents her opinion and supports it and has a pretty good flow. she specifically asked about whether her paper fit the assignment, her grammar and punctuation, and MLA formatting. Beth asked her where she would like to start because her paper seemed well-written. i asked if she had a previous paper that was graded by the professor and she had one so beth looked it over and because grammar really seemed to be her biggest problem, in both her eyes and her professor's so they worked on that. this is one case where her grade was marked down on the last paper from a 4.0 to a 3.0 strictly because she had a few run-ons and incorrect commas. beth addressed larger issues as she went if she saw them and when she corrected grammar, she explained the concept of that particular punctuation so the student could take that and apply it- which she did quite well. the student was interested in improving her grade, but she was also very interested in retaining the information she needed to be able to correct her own paper next time. beth takes a very similar approach as me to tutoring which makes a lot of sense because we were both trained in the same place. we went to the same highschool and both worked in the Salem writing center, which was known for its excellence. =] the english teachers at our school were awesome- there's really no other appropriate word for them...
Someone observing me (2)
Noah watched me try to talk to the girl who brought in her friend's paper...he said he had no idea how to handle her and said i did a pretty good job =]
Me as the client (2)
i will schedule a consult for my honors option paper for abnormal psychology because if we dont get an a on the paper, we don't get our h on our transcripts. =[
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